Off to Los Angeles on an early flight after a fine, unseasonably cool evening of baseball which included a moving tribute to the late John Vukavich in which many past Phillies greats participated. Duane threw a strike, John Smoltz gave an inspiring talk to a FCA event for kids, I met George Will just outside the third base dugout (he’s at work on a column on umpiring legend Bruce Froeming) and the Phillies topped the Braves 5-4 after a first inning in which each team sent nine batters to the plate to score four runs on five hits before settling into a rapid up-down game which saw only three hits the rest of the way in the 2 hour and 24 minute sprint of a game. As I said, a fine night.

We may not fly directly over Ames, but if we are anywhere close we ought to be able to spot the buses in the parking lots there are so many of them. Marc Ambinder has an excellent round-up of the subplots and Geraghty the Indispensable a post on the expectations game, and I have an evangelical friend driving there who will be sending me an e-mail latter in the day on the ground view of an ordinary activist.